Not too long ago I shared with you an infographic – 104 facts about mobile marketing. Since I have an interest in infographics that relate to social media and all things Internet, I found a new infographic that closely correlates with this one…

The new infographic is entitled, “Internet In Real Time.” It contains various statistics of what companies are doing second-by-second. For example, the number of Facebook likes per second or the number of Google searches per second. It covers a wide variety of popular companies including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Youtube, Airbnb and even Uber.

Social networking websites have become a popular way to interact with people on the Internet. Thirty-five percent of adults on the Internet now have a profile on at least one social networking site, and 51 percent have more than one. Three-quarters of users between the ages of 18 and 24 have an online profile.

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, Urban Chat and Black Planet are just a few of more than 100 Web sites connecting folks around the world who are eager to share their thoughts and feelings.

The use of social media at work presents new opportunities to employers, but also new responsibilities. One is how to manage the amount of time employees spend using the sites and how it is affecting workplace productivity.

Here are some recommendations relating to what employees should not be doing/sharing on social media sites:

Don’t share too much information – It’s very easy to get caught up in the social aspects of sites like Facebook, but what you choose to share is there for all to see if you don’t limit who can view your information. Sharing personal information with strangers can be dangerous business, and there are some things you should definitely put on your “do not share” list. With Twitter, you can tweet a half dozen times per day and be fine. With Facebook Business Page, once a day should be enough and the same goes for LinkedIn too.

Don’t say you hate your job – You may not like your job or your boss but complaining about it on social media is not going to go down well when your boss finds out.

Posting information when your profiles are linked to more than one site – You may post something innocuous on one site, but then it’s linked to your LinkedIn work profile and you’ve put your job at risk because of that posting.

Failing to keep secrets – News about your workplace, for example, a planned expansion or project should be kept private and under wraps. For instance, broadcasting your visit to a competitor’s client might hurt your company’s chances of securing new business.

Avoid being negative – Negative comments on social media about fellow employees, your employer or customers lowers the reputation of the company and its customers. You should showcase the success of your colleagues, your company and not just your own achievements and accomplishments.

Don’t get into an argument – A difference of opinion is OK; a full-blown argument is definitely taboo. If you want to descend into mud-slinging, just remember, on the Internet, you can’t take it back – it’s permanent and will remain there… forever!

Don’t boast – It’s OK to let people know you just got promoted or you just got a brand new car but be subtle – and grateful. Humility goes a long way on social networks.

Don’t get personal – Just because you have some dirt on the office manager or another colleague, it doesn’t mean you have the green light to share unflattering gossip online. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is the perfect maxim for social networking.

Don’t share the fact that you are planning to take a sick day on social media! And don’t share photos of an event that reveals that you were not sick that day. (Note: What the $##@$#$ are you doing taking a (fake) sick day in the first place? If you want a day off, ask for it and schedule it with your boss. Have some self-respect!)

Don’t use social media for posting defamatory or discriminatory messages – Be aware that social media can be used for cyber bullying and harassment purposes, so avoid posting offensive or threatening comments.

Do not repost articles – be careful about sharing posts you have not actually read because headlines rarely reveal the entire story. Read the article before you attach your reputation to it.

Don’t compromise your organisation’s security – visiting social networking sites at work may expose company networks to malware and can help hackers steal identities and data. Hackers are attracted to networking sites because of the potential they see to commit fraud and launch spam malware attacks.

Rapid posting – spamming the newsfeed. This is not the place to broadcast links to articles.

Post/participate in spam comments. This is frowned upon by all.

Participate in flame wars. The opinions on LinkedIn may not be the same as yours so while it may be difficult to hold back and express your opinion, do so in a professional manner.

Auto-post from another social channel to LinkedIn. You cannot sync LinkedIn with Twitter; it causes spam and clutter.

Auto-post from website feed. You should not auto share every post on social media. Everything you do on LinkedIn will always be taken in a professional way, unlike Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn is not a publishing tool for broadcasting messages; it’s a networking tool for showcasing yourself as a professional and make people want to work with you, value your opinions and thoughts.

Twitter is another social networking phenomenon you should be careful with.

You are what you share/tweet – Just use good common sense when sharing on social networks. The Internet is now the track record of your life. Don’t share something that you don’t want to be left as a representation of you. But don’t let this stop you from making yourself known on issues and things that matter. Having no voice pertaining to certain things that your business stands behind could be worse than a few people disagreeing with your own beliefs. Be proud of who you are and represent as a business, but make sure that you know what image you’re crafting as a result.

Don’t be needy – No one likes needy people on social media. So don’t ask your Twitter followers to “retweet this tweet please.” And don’t beg your Facebook friends to come “Like” your page. Get creative with the way you do things. You can still accomplish those tasks, but learn how to disguise them.

If you misuse Twitter, let’s face it, everyone will see you for what you are – a TWIT!

The first part is how Lynn Gilmartin had a fabulous experience floating and video blogged about it. Inner Outer Health is a client of ours and its owner, Lena Yammine was gobsmacked when she saw the video as was I. You have to take a look at the video, it’s so natural, authentic and genuine – Lena could not have paid for a better testimonial!

The lesson here is that we tech our clients Exponential Marketing Strategies that are based on high-integrity, long-term value creation principles that once adopted, become exponential due to the sheer force of the Law Of Attraction. Paying it forward reaps dividends for months, years and decades to come.

One of the problems with modern life and technology is that “some” people forget we are still HUMAN and still act and react as humans do…

A testimonial like the one Lynn created for Lena is literally PRICELESS.

Isn’t it amazing how “some” people get this stuff and others struggle?

The reason for my blog post today is to SHOW you how you can get new leads by adding value and leveraging the Internet as a HUMAN CHANNEL, to communicate with your audience. As you do that, you WILL reap the benefits, one click, one client at a time.

If you want to learn how you can start to attract more ideal clients like Lynn to YOUR business – have a look at a bundle we put together for you to help you generate more online leads effortlessly.

Once you do that, you’ll fully grasp the value of the FREE BONUS that resides on the next page…

Today’s blog post is special. I know you hear that a lot, but bear with me and determine for yourself if what I reveal below is valuable, maybe even priceless for you.

In today’s world, we know you have to be online to get new leads and you have to have a preeminent presence NOT to lose the sales that are on their way to you. I know it sounds harsh, but if your website sucks, prospects are going to avoid you, simple as that. Prospects who were considering purchasing from you will now buy from your competitor.

That’s pretty obvious, but so is lead generation – but then again is it really?

The fundamental building block of online lead generation is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The problem is how to do it EFFECTIVELY and EFFICIENTLY.

Effectiveness comes from doing the right things and efficiency from spending the least amount of time, effort and/or cost doing it.

So what’s so special about today’s post then?

Glad you’re still reading and interested.

First of all, I want you to click on this link —> it’s a Funny Puppy Video. Go have a look and then come back here…

Blogging is increasingly important, especially for small businesses who want to generate new leads. We cover why and how to do it at our Blogging for Business workshop that we also have recorded as a “How to blog webinar“. One of the things we cover is the top mistakes to avoid, including this colourful infographic that summarises the most common writing mistakes.

Step #1: Get a video created that captures people’s attention and gets your primary message across. Sorry, my preferred site for these videos is a secret I keep for my clients. A video like this should cost less than $100 – MUCH LESS.

Step #2: Upload the video to YouTube and make sure to optimise the video to achieve the maximum SEO benefit and total views. Sorry, again those are special tips for clients only!

If you aren’t leveraging these strategies, you’re either spending way too much time, money and/or effort. What we teach are the fastest, easiest and least expensive strategies to get free organic traffic to your website and/or blog.

The challenge is not to cheat and use black hat strategies that will get you knocked off the search engine listings.

BEWARE of the SEO service providers who “guarantee” listing results. They might GET you there, but staying there and NOT being penalised by Google is another matter. Trying to “undo” their tactics could cost you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars. In one extreme case, the website was banned from Google which essentially killed the business “overnight”. A frightful thought.

When we track down an SEO agency that finally fits the bill, conveys the right message and checks out against a pile of references they’ve thrown our way, the battle is won and we can now get on with the challenges of being a business without the online clap-trap, right?

Well, not really.

Leaving your online presence and eventual income charts in the sticky hands of an SEO agency is risky, even in the best of circumstances and relationships; SEO is an industry that changes quickly, with an average of two algorithm changes being processed by Google every day.

While they stay on top of things and fling us through reports, our eyes should scan the page and critically measure their performance, based on the three following indicators.

Are You Coming or Going? Traffic Comparisons

“So, (your name), as you can see here, your traffic numbers have improved substantially over the last few months, doubling last year’s figures!”

“But we didn’t have analytics tracking installed last year…”

Sound familiar?

*Crickets*

SEO professionals are trained, semantic artists, often finding the positive spin in a report and embellishing the details. Whilst shopping around, make sure you carefully select an ethical company like Search Factory to represent and hone your online interests.

If you’ve already taken the leap and plunged into a dotted line fiasco, ask to see a traffic comparison in an easy to understand format over the last month against the preceding month, the last three months, fluctuations over six months and comparisons to the previous year (if you have data dating back that far).

If they dance around these figures and neglect to provide you with meaningful information, something shady may be going on and your money may be invested better elsewhere.

Up, Up and Gone Away? Climbing the Rankings

When was the last time you set eyes on a keyword report that didn’t bore you to tears and lead you to tear your hair out with confused frustration?

Agencies can be fond of over-feeding clients information they don’t need to process, hoping to distract their focus from a complete lack of results across the board.

Make sure your report includes an easy to understand table of keyword rankings (and know which keywords you’d like to be ranking for!), complete with increased or decreased search volume, converting keywords and dead keywords.

A competent specialist will guide you through what everything means, pulling parts together into one cohesive picture that doesn’t make you want to throw your computer out the window.

If your agency doesn’t have time (or make time) to sit down with you and drill into keyword reporting, you need to question whether you are really their priority; there’s nothing worse than being taken for a ride and paying a premium mark-up for the pleasure.

Backlinks? What Backlinks?

Upon opening an SEO report, a range of indicators should automatically be indexed or at least apparent as the pages roll on.

If your reports lack any evidence of back-linking, from process to mention, pick up the phone and demand more information.

Chances are, your nominated SEO company has completely neglected a very important facet of ramping up sustained rankings. Think of the Internet as a mega-city; you have ghettos and caravan parks, middle class dwellings and specialists, expensive neighbourhoods and affluent areas – link building allows SEO agencies to tap into this embedded social hierarchy and put your brand in touch with the right people, managing not only your online reputation, but audience perception through association.

The absence of these negotiations is not only preventing your company from climbing a very competitive exposure ladder, it may work against you in the future, as you struggle to play catch up to competitors who have made smart choices in link building activities and grown a strong following or a database of highly ranked websites.

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot before you get started!

Everybody has an opinion. So what about the rest of us? What do you think SEO agencies should include on reports, or do you have a horror story to share with me? Thoughts, ideas, anecdotes are welcome!

About the author of this blog post

Jessica Hannah is a part of the team at Search Factory, a leading Brisbane SEO agency.

According to recent studies, search engine users overwhelmingly click on organic results as opposed to paid ads by a whopping margin of 94 per cent to 6 per cent.

One study looked at both branded and non-branded search queries. On branded searches, the top search result received the most clicks, which makes sense, considering the search is likely to be navigational in nature:

Result 1: 80%

Result 2: 6%

Result 3: 4%

Remainder: 10%

On non-branded searches, however, the data indicates searchers are more willing to go well beyond the top 3 results (more than 50% of the time!):

Result 1: 35 %

Result 2: 15 %

Result 3: 11 %

Remainder: 39 %

With the natural tendency for users to trust organic listings over the paid counterparts, one has to wonder why small businesses aren’t improving their SEO rankings to get listed higher and more frequently for the keywords their suspects and prospects are typing into Google.

The best part of all of this is that organic search results are essentially free – once you know what to do, it’s quite easy and a lot less effort than the alternative – Making enough money to pay for paid listings!